Futility

Being a producer around here is like trying to direct a Broadway show full of deaf-mutes —William Diehl

Charging like Don Quixote at the windmills —George Bernard Shaw

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing —Phyllis Diller

The twists on everyday life similes to describe ineffective actions are virtually without limit. A few more examples: effective “As using a sword against cobwebs,” “As trying to plug a hole with Scotch tape,” “As waxing a broken car.”

Confronting Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle with real arms control is like confronting Dracula with a silver cross: You expect him to make loud noises and thresh about —Wall Street Journal editorial, March 25, 1986

Convincing her [to get an abortion] is like trying to convince her the moon’s a yo-yo —Ann Beattie

Effective as redecorating a house over a corroding plumbing system —Anon

Explained to, cajoled, and bullied … but he might as well have been boxing with a feather bolster —Lael Tucker Wertenbaker

Futile as an attempt to tattoo soap bubbles —Anon

Futile as regret —Edward Arlington Robinson

Futile as to attempt to dust cobwebs off the moon —Anon

Futile as to fight an earthquake with argument —Anon

Futile … like a lacy valentine with a red heart which contains no message of love —Louis Auchincloss

Futile … like emptying a cupful of ants into a butterfly nest for safekeeping —Beryl Bainbridge

Futility

(See also EXTRANEOUSNESS.)

bark at the moon To labor or protest in vain; to choose an ineffectual means to achieve a desired end, or to attempt the impossible, thereby making any effort futile by definition; also often bay at the moon. The phrase refers to the common practice of dogs to bay at the moon, as if to frighten or provoke it. Connotations of the foolishness of barking at the moon, based on the disparity between the earthly dog and the mystical moon, are carried over into the figurative usage, as if to imply that barking at the moon is like banging one’s head against the wall.

beat one’s head against the wall To attempt an impossible task to one’s own detriment; to vainly oppose an unyielding force; also to hit, knock, or bang one’s head against the wall, often a stone wall. The allusion is to the futility and frustration, not to mention injury, caused by such an action.

beat the air To strike out at nothing, to labor or talk idly or to no purpose; to shadowbox. The phrase may well derive directly from the last definition, as suggested by its use in the King James Version of the New Testament:

I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air. (I Corinthians 9:26)

the blind leading the blind Ignorance on the part of both leaders and followers; lack of guidance and direction resulting in certain failure; futility. The phrase is of Biblical origin. Speaking of the Pharisees, Jesus says:

They be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. (Matthew 15:14)

The expression is also the title of a famous painting by Pieter Breughel the Elder (1568).

cast stones against the wind To labor in vain; to work without accomplishing anything.

I see I swim against the stream, I kick against a goad, I cast a stone against the wind. (Grange, Golden Aphrodite, 1577)

cry for the moon To desire the unattainable or the impossible, to want what is wholly beyond one’s reach; also to ask or wish for the moon. Although some sources conjecture that this expression comes from children crying for the moon to play with, that theory seems a bit forced. The moon has long typified a place impossible to reach or object impossible to obtain, and was so used by Shakespeare in Henry VI, Part II (1593):

And dogged York, that reaches at the moon,

Whose overweening arm I have plucked back. (III, i)

A similar French expression is vouloir prendre la lune avec les dents ‘to want to take the moon between one’s teeth.’

flog a dead horse To attempt to rekindle interest in a worn-out topic, flagging discussion, doomed or defeated legislation, or other matter; to engage in futile activity. The figurative use of this expression is closely related to the literal, i.e., it is useless to attempt to revive or stimulate something that is dead.

In parliament he again pressed the necessity of reducing expenditure. Friends warned him that he was flogging a dead horse. (John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden, 1881)

make bricks without straw To try to accomplish a task without the proper materials or essential ingredients. The current sense of this expression is due to a misinterpretation of the Biblical story (Exodus 5:6-19) from which it comes. The Israelites were not ordered to make bricks without straw at all, as is popularly believed. Rather, they were told that straw for the sun-dried mud-and-straw bricks they were required to make would no longer be provided for them, and that they would have to go out and gather it themselves. Making bricks without straw would be an impossible task since straw was the essential element in holding the sun-dried mud bricks together. Use of the expression dates from the mid-17th century.

It is often good for us to have to make bricks without straw. (Sir Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library, 1874)

milk the ram To engage in an activity destined to fail, to try in vain to do something which cannot be done; also to milk the bull. A ram is a male sheep and a bull is a male bovine. The old proverb “Whilst the one milks the ram, the other holds under the sieve” probably spawned this phrase; it appeared in Several Tracts by John Hales in 1656.

a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse An obsolete proverb of obvious explicit literal meaning. Figuratively, this phrase implies that regardless of how obvious a hint or suggestion may seem, it is useless if the person to whom it is directed is not aware of it. Thus, subtlety and tact can, at times, be inappropriate, particularly when dealing with a person known for his obtuseness. It is likely that this adage had been current for several centuries before its earliest literary usage in 1794 by William Godwin in The Adventures of Caleb Williams.

plow the sands To engage in fruitless or futile labor, to waste one’s time trying to do an impossible or endless task.

All our time, all our labour, and all our assiduity is as certain to be thrown away as if you were to plough the sands of the seashore, the moment that the Bill reaches the Upper Chamber. (Herbert Henry Asquith, Speech at Birmingham, 1894)

In Richard II (II, ii) Shakespeare used a similar expression with the same meaning:

Alas, poor Duke! The task he undertakes

Is numbering sands and drinking oceans dry.

put a rope to the eye of a needle To attempt the impossible. To explain would be to belabor the obvious.

roast snow in a furnace To pursue ludicrous or meaningless activities; to engage in futile, pointless tasks. The figurative implications of this expression are obvious.

shoe the goose To engage in aimless, trivial, unnecessary, or futile activities; to do busy work; to waste time. As this expression implies, putting shoes on a goose is as ludicrous and pointless as it is futile.

Yet I can do something else than shoe the goose for my living. (Nicholas Breton, Grinello’s Fort, 1604)

sleeveless errand Any aimless or futile activity; an endeavor that is sure to be unprofitable or unsuccessful. In this expression, sleeveless is probably derived from sleave ‘knotted threads’ such as on the ends of woven fabrics, implying that the task or errand has loose ends which are not tied together in any significant or worthwhile manner. Most popular in the 16th and 17th centuries, sleeveless errand commonly referred to a false mission or other bogus activity which would keep a person occupied, and therefore out of the way, for a period of time. Variations such as sleeveless words, sleeveless reason, etc., have appeared in works by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and others.

He was employ’d by Pope Alexander the third upon a sleeveless errand to convert the Sultan of Iconium. (Myles Davies, Athenae Britannicae, 1716)

square the circle To engage in a futile endeavor; to undertake an impossible task. Early mathematicians struggled to find a circle and a square with equal areas. This is an impossibility since a principal factor in the area formula for a circle is π (3.1416 …), an irrational number, whereas the factors in the area formula for a square are always rational numbers. The expression can now be applied to the attempting of any impossibility.

You may as soon square the circle, as reduce the several Branches … under one single Head. (Thomas Brown, Fresny’s Amusements, 1704)

throw straws against the wind To vainly resist the inevitable, to sweep back the Atlantic with a broom. A similar expression appeared in John Taylor’s Shilling (1622):

Like throwing feathers ‘gainst the wind.

Both straw and feathers are very light and no match for the force of the wind.

wash a brick To work in vain, to engage in utterly useless or futile labor, to plow the sands.

I wish I could make him feel as he ought, but one may as well wash a brick. (Warner in John Heneage Jesse’s George Selwyn and his Comtemporaries, 1779)

Rarely heard today, this self-evident expression is the English equivalent of the old Latin proverb laterem lavare.

wild-goose chase An impractical and ill-advised search for something nonexistent or unobtainable; a foolish and useless quest; a futile or hopeless enterprise. Originally, a wild-goose chase was a horse race where the second and all succeeding horses had to follow the leader at definite intervals, thus resembling wild geese in flight. Since the second horse was not allowed to overtake the first, it would become exhausted in its futile chase. It has alternately been suggested that wild-goose chase may refer to the difficulty of capturing a wild goose, implying that even if caught, the prize is of little value.

“I see you have found nothing,” exclaimed Lady Gethin…. “It was a wild goose chase,” he replied with a weary look. (Mrs. Alexander, At Bay, 1885)

It is true, they realized that the Peasant Revolt was unplanned, and that the First Revolt was premature; but they little realized that the Second Revolt, planned and mature, was doomed to equal futility and more terrible punishment.

The improbability of the existence of a force equal to that object has been discussed and demonstrated in different parts of these papers; but that the futility of the objection under consideration may appear in the strongest light, it shall be conceded for a moment that such a force might exist, and the national government shall be supposed to be in the actual possession of it.

As the little expedition of sailors toiled through the dense jungle searching for signs of Jane Porter, the futility of their venture became more and more apparent, but the grief of the old man and the hopeless eyes of the young Englishman prevented the kind hearted D'Arnot from turning back.

They were both living in my time in Italy, and they were two men whom I should now like very much to have seen, if I could have done so without that futility which seems to attend every effort to pay one's duty to such men.

The occasion was to serve as an object-lesson to all other slaves of the danger and futility of attempted escape, and the fatal consequences of taking the life of a superior being, and so I imagine that Sagoths felt amply justified in making the entire proceeding as uncomfortable and painful to us as possible.

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